My opinion of the debate in four words: much better than Gore.

(But first, Matt and I both loved the moment at the end when Laura Bush and Teresa Heinz Kerry warmly greeted each other and compared their similarly-colored dresses. Actually, we were hoping for a Krystle/Alexis catfight.)

Anyway, here are my thoughts, which don’t matter anyway, because the Borg Media Collective will form its own narrative over the next two or three days, probably with the help of some agile Republicans, and transmit it to the masses. But here goes.

First, Kerry’s face wasn’t orange. That alone was an improvement over Gore. On top of that, he didn’t sigh or patronizingly shake his head, he didn’t sweat, and not once did he go over his time limit. And he sounded gracious in praising Laura Bush, which was a nice touch.

Bush was Bush. I loathe him, but I’m not a swing voter, so again, my opinion doesn’t matter. While he barely stumbled over words, some of his pauses were painfully long, and he certainly looked annoyed when the camera showed him listening to Kerry’s responses.

I’m glad Jim Lehrer helped them get into some real give-and-take a couple of times; it was far from the sterile “parallel press conference” I’d expected.

As for substance, I’m glad that more than once, Kerry emphasized the distinction between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

KERRY: Jim, the president just said something extraordinarily revealing and frankly very important in this debate. In answer to your question about Iraq and sending people into Iraq, he just said, “The enemy attacked us.”

Saddam Hussein didn’t attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaida attacked us.

. . .

BUSH: First of all, of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that.

I think he meant to add you dumbass.

My favorite moment was this Bush line:

But to say that there’s only one focus on the war on terror doesn’t really understand the nature of the war on terror. Of course we’re after Saddam Hussein — I mean bin Laden.

That, in a nutshell, explains the entire Iraq fiasco.

There were a few times that Bush said something and I wanted Kerry to respond a certain way, but he didn’t. When Bush brought up the “$87 billion” thing, I wanted Kerry to explicitly explain that he “voted for the $87 billion” when it was going to be paid for by taxing the richest Americans, and then “voted against it” only because the bill itself changed — instead of being paid for in taxes, the $87 billion was going to be added to the deficit. But maybe that would have been too complicated for the American people to understand. Instead:

KERRY: Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?

Fine. Hey, I don’t know from politics.

Kerry was also nicely succint here:

I’ve had one position, one consistent position, that Saddam Hussein was a threat. There was a right way to disarm him and a wrong way. And the president chose the wrong way.

So I liked the debate. Again, though, ALL BETS ARE OFF as to how last night plays into the election, as I’m nobody.